PG Open Day

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Last Wednesday, I helped out at the Postgraduate Open Day as a Student Ambasssador.

I worked alongside several other postgraduate students and we assisted with registration, directions, tours, parking duty and counting the number of students who attended each talk.

Two things struck me:

1. The Postgraduate Open Day was very well-attended and Birmingham is clearly one of the leading institutions for Postgraduate study.
2. Earning some money as a Student Ambassador is a great way for postgraduate to overcome some of their financial difficulties, in addition to being a CV-boosting development opportunity.

Congratulations must go to the Outreach department for putting on a well-organised, successful event.

Lastly, amidst all of my Ambassador work, I took time out to lead on a talk in my Officer capacity titled 'How to make the most of your time here at Birmingham.' Naturally, I talked at great length about the Guild and the PGMSA, plus I had three questions at the end, which is an impressive number for any PowerPoint presentation.

It is clear that the attendees on the day were impressed by what they heard and saw about our fine University. Let's hope we see them again next September.
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One Big Blog

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I haven't blogged for a while so here is a quick splurge of information about what I've been doing these past few weeks.

9th November - Grad School Networking Lunch.

10th November - the 'Tell David' campaign outside the Aston Webb building. Would you pay £7000 a year for fees? And that's just the undergrads. Imagine what they'll charge postgrads, who don't even have a cap to begin with.

13th November - Networking Day at Nottingham Students' Union. This was particularly useful because I spent the day with Rebecca Lockhart, their full-time Postgraduate Students' Officer. She is lovely & American and she taught me lots of great stuff. We are looking to collaborate on future events, which ticks my manifesto box for regional networking. I was also given a tour of the Nottingham Grad School by the Head, Tessa Payne.

14th November - National Postgraduate Forum in York and the first of its kind. This was suprisingly useful and I learnt a huge amount about the issues that PGTs and PGRs deal with.

17th November - the PGMSA AGM. I spent a lot of time planning this and although we emailed all 8081 postgraduate students (thanks to the help of Postgraduate Student Outreach) only a handful of students showed up. Nevertheless, we elected seven out of the nine Committee positions (all international students) and I am very excited about working with them. Special thank you must go to Johnny Davis (VP Welfare) who helped out on the night.

19th November - I met with my Sabb mentor, the wonderful Brigid Jones, and she caught me up on several postgraduate issues that she is working on. In the afternoon, I sat on a Student Disciplinary Panel. This is nothing to do with postgrads but it is nevertheless part of my Officer role. In the evening was Guild Council and mine & Emma's Honey Pot motion was successful. Guild Council now believes that postgrads should be able to apply for Honey Pot funding so myself and Emma Packham (VP Student Activities & Development) need to start lobbying.

21st November - Johnny Davis (VP Welfare) hosted a Student Parents Forum at the Guild. I went along knowing that most of the student parents would be mature students and I spoke to them about the challenges that face student parents. Seven mums, one Dad and nine children attended. Due to positive feedback, a second Forum will take place in two weeks.

As you can see, busy times. Thank you for reading.
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Shakespeare Institute Festival

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I met with Fabian Neuner (Guild President) this week to discuss his exciting vision for a festival over at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford.

The Institute has been a long-neglected Satellite Site and Fabian plans to remind everyone why we have this resource with a day-long festival celebrating both drama and the bard himself.

This campaign will bring together traditionally unrepresented groups, such as the postgraduates studying at our Shakespeare Institute and the drama societies of our Guild.

However, there will be opportunities for other students to attend the event to ensure awareness is raised about the Stratford site. It is hoped that the five Guild drama societies will play a big part in the event and run workshops throughout the day, such as improv classes and script readings. It is also hoped that we will have RSC professionals providing their own fair share of workshops, varying from stage combat lessons to career talks.

The day looks set to culminate in a trip to see an RSC production.

The plans are still in development but the students at the Institute have given us their support. We are looking at hosting the festival in June to coincide with the Britgrad Conference (uniting lovers of Renaissance drama from around the world)

Expect to hear more about the festival throughout the year.
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